


Mrs. and Mrs.

by mautadite



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Post-Game(s), Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 15:10:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12135159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: One thing Chloe’s learnt working with her new partner is that there’s often simplicity in numbers, if that number is two.(Chloe and Nadine go undercover at a fancy ball.)





	Mrs. and Mrs.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll be straight (haha) with y’all: this fic is started mostly as a pretext to write one of my favourite tropes (undercover as a couple) before growing into a story I really like and am psyched to share. Chloe and Nadine continue to be TONNES of fun to write. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Several months post game. No real spoilers for TLL.

Rich American scumbags, Chloe is somewhat gratified to discover, are just like their scummy counterparts across the pond, far east, and down under. They talk entirely too much for people who are so incredibly dull, they walk around completely secure in the knowledge that they are always right, and they are susceptible to flattery to an extent that borders on puerility. 

Also, they have a universally shit taste in shoes. 

Chloe indeed spends the majority of her conversation with the senator looking at the woman’s garish neon blue pumps. Ana Govender is a brilliant historian, but also has a reputation for being chronically shy. Chloe survives the exchange without having to do much more than say ‘ah’ and ‘I see’, with the occasional esoteric interjection and a lot of flustered blushing. The persona is one mostly of Sam’s making; she’ll have to remember to thank him when this job is over.

When she gets the information she needs from Senator Allgood, Chloe sticks around for a polite, non-suspicious period of time, then disentangles herself from the little gaggle of women with murmured apologies, clutching her glass of expensive wine. 

“Off to find your formidable wife, no doubt,” the host says in a knowing drawl, and Chloe blushes prettily for their benefit, pushing her fake glasses further up her nose. 

She keeps her mask up as she navigates her way down the grand staircase, and through the glittering crowd. The Allgood estate house oozes old money in a carefully cultivated way: not too vulgar, not with the exaggerated affectation of the newly wealthy. Pity; a bit of baubles here and tawdriness there might have rendered the mansion charming. As is, it is anything but. A sprawling expanse, the property is; verdant lawns as big as golf courses outside, elegant and complex topiary animals, and the house itself a marvel of stone and marble. Overwhelmingly high ceilings inside, grand chandeliers with geometric lights, marble floors, understated but clearly expensive fixtures. Old, classic, untouchable money, it all fairly screams.

Chloe could care less about old and classic, but by the end of the night she’ll have something to say about the untouchable part. The job is simple. Senator Allgood’s son had come back from Iraq with a purple heart, glowing commendations, and several artefacts that he had discovered. ‘Discovered’ in the same way Columbus had discovered this charming continent; he found stuff that people had already laid claim to, and took it for his own. Chloe herself doesn’t quite have the moral high ground in this regard, but since several pieces had been nicked straight from destroyed museums and private homes, she figures she has the young lieutenant by a few rungs on the ladder.

Rasheeda Aboud, their employer, had been presented with several options, and she went with the one that seemed simplest to her: stealing the items back. To that end, she had called her old friend Victor Sullivan, who called Nate, who told Sam, who passed it along to Chloe and Nadine. Which brings them here, to a grand gala in South Carolina populated by low-lives so rich and arrogant it makes Chloe’s teeth ache to look at them, with a plan that might actually work. 

Throw a strategy together; check. Establish their identities; check. Secure invitations to the prestigious and exclusive ball inside of the fortress of a mansion; check. On site recon; check. 

Everything else… work in progress. 

A flight of long, circling stairs lies between her and her destination; she navigates them slowly, nodding to a general here, smiling shyly at a congressman there. Chloe uses the slow trek down to scan the crowd below her, and finds Nadine quickly enough, standing near the fringes of the dance floor. Chloe had picked out that green blouse for her (tossed it at her casually in a department store, telling her it would bring out the colour in her eyes) and it stands out brilliantly amidst all the black and white tuxes and pastel evening gowns. It also doesn’t hurt that Nadine is one of the few spots of brown in a sea of mostly white. Chloe doesn’t recognise the two men that flank her, but she does recognise the look on her friend’s face: alertness draped over expertly masked boredom.

“I’m coming, china,” she murmurs beneath her breath, and lets Ana Govender’s feet scurry down the steps just a touch faster. A passing waiter with a tray collects her wine glass as she descends upon the main area. Speakers overhead emanate with the mild tones of a piano, some classical tune she should know. A few couples dance in the middle of the floor, most swaying passionlessly, others performing the steps of a waltz. Chloe sidles around them, eyes on her destination.

Nadine isn’t the best actress, but she’s too much of a professional to let her relief show when Chloe materialises at her side. She simply smiles the soft, delighted smile that Chloe is still getting used to, and takes her arm.

“There you are, Mrs. Govender,” she says, and leans down to kiss the cheek that Chloe tilts up. Nadine wears a muted, plum-coloured lipstick, one of the inexpensive brands that transfers easily. There must surely now be a second kiss mark on her cheek to match the one that Nadine had given her earlier this evening; the kind that this lot must think quaint and provincial. Chloe returns the smile, hand on Nadine’s bicep.

“Here I am, Mrs. Govender,” she agrees, adjusting her glasses.

“Where did you disappear off to?”

“I was just speaking to the senator some more. She’s lovely.”

Chloe _is_ a good actress, and even she doesn’t know how she manages not to snicker at that. Chloe has found lovelier things than the senator stuck between her toes after a romp through the mud.

A tittering, faux-polite cough intrudes. 

“This must be your, ahem... wife, Captain Govender.”

“Yes, please introduce us.”

Chloe pulls out all the Ana Govender classics for the introductions to the two men; a doctor and a lawyer whose names she relegates to the part of her brain gifted with such. She keeps her hand lightly touching Nadine’s arm. The past few months working together have deepened the bond that they formed in the Western Ghats, and she calls on that and her touch to communicate what she has to say and what Nadine must guess at anyway: _We need to talk._

As if there’s a third hand in this pot, (which there currently isn’t; Sam is back at the hotel, working another job) the music suddenly changes, dropping an opportunity in Chloe’s lap like a neatly wrapped present. She snatches it up at once, putting on her best starry-eyed look.

“Oh, sweetheart, do you hear that?” 

A second is all it takes for Nadine to cotton on; she exchanges that blank look for one of warmth in an instant.

“Our song...”

“Do you remember the first time we heard it in concert together, that night in Johannesburg?”

Nadine trails a finger briefly down her cheek. Despite herself (or perhaps not despite herself; she’s only flesh and blood) Chloe feels a real thrill run through her chest, and she needs no helps summoning a little flush to her cheeks. She doesn’t allow herself to dwell on it though; that little pickle can be resolved another day. 

“How could I forget? Please, excuse us, gentlemen, we simply must.”

She offers Chloe her hand, and leads her towards the centre of the dance floor. Couples part and shuffle to allow them passage, casting side-eyed looks, murmuring to their neighbours. Mostly conservative, this bunch, but not so much that their false identities would prove to be a problem; that they’d made sure of before coming within a mile of the Allgood estate.

As they walk, Chloe can feel Nadine’s arm getting tenser and tenser, and by the time they’ve found a free spot on the floor, and those strong arms are enveloping her, Nadine’s voice has lost the tinge of high society culture that she hates to have to affect. It’s the voice of her friend as Chloe knows it best: business-like, soft, to the point.

“You have no idea how close Ana Govender came to being a widow. Ten more minutes in that crowd and I’d have voluntarily eaten an RPG for dinner.”

Chloe doesn’t know this dance any more than she knows the song that’s playing, but she moves easily enough, following Nadine’s lead, one hand on her shoulder, another on her muscular waist. She pitches her voice low, giving her first genuine laugh of the evening.

“Super Chloe to the rescue. How do you reckon I’ll look in spandex?”

“Ridiculous,” Nadine replies immediately, and Chloe loves not needing to look at her to know that she’s smiling. “Please tell me that you have good news after being gone so long. Did you really spend all of it talking to the Senator? If so, you have my condolences.”

Nadine, who’s had to spend time with both mother and son, has developed a healthy disdain for them both.

“Nah, you know how industrious I am. I also got some reconnaissance done. And yep, I’ve got good news, but that’s not all I’ve got.”

Nadine nods brusquely, rolling, as ever, with the punches.

“Give me the bad news first.”

They go silent for a short measure of time as another couple drifts close. Chloe keeps a close eye on the faces of the crowd. The elder Allgood must still be upstairs; the younger hasn’t emerged from the billiard room all night. He and all his army cronies had disappeared into the smoky, stately room at the start of the night. Gambling away mummy’s money, no doubt.

She presses closer against Nadine, following the steps of the dance as her feet tell her. Usually, Nadine is only a couple inches taller than her, but with Chloe in flats and Nadine in smart little heels, the difference is starker. They must look quite the pair, with Chloe’s full skirts drifting about Nadine’s long legs.

“We were right,” she says when she’s once again sure they’re in no danger of being overheard, “to think that our plans of the house might be out-dated, because they are. ‘Pretty much obsolete’ kind of out-dated.”

Nadine bites back an annoyed sound.

“Dammit.”

“Yeah. I guess those renovations we heard about were way more complex than we knew.”

“Suppose it would have been too much to hope that we could get a hold of the updated plans. We never get that lucky.” She spins Chloe away from her, letting her twirl, before drawing her back in. She looks lean, elegant, composed. Of all the things that Nadine Ross is preternaturally good at, Chloe had not expected to find dancing among them. “Does the ventilation shaft plan still fly?”

“I think it might. That’s the good news. The necklace, the tome and the statuette aren’t where we thought they were, but I should still be able to get to them. Allgood let enough slip that she practically drew me a map into the private wing.”

“You got her to talk that much?” Even after all this time working together, Nadine sounds faintly impressed, and Chloe won’t lie: it’s kind of gratifying. 

“Oh, you know. A nudge here, a segue there. Lead a conversation around subtly enough and you can learn pretty much anything you need to know. And you know how rich people can get.” She brings her hand up off of Nadine’s shoulder to briefly mime a rapidly talking mouth.

“Well, that’s why I tend to leave them up to you. What do you think our chances are, otherwise?”

Chloe shrugs. The movement causes one of the straps of her dress to slip off her shoulder; Nadine adjusts it with a single finger without missing a beat.

“Pretty good. Not having the right plans is going to be a pain in the arse though. I don’t want to be missed, so I need to move quickly. It’ll be hard to do that if I’m practically searching blind, but... I’ve managed harder.”

She thinks she says it casually enough, but Nadine gives her a searching look nonetheless.

“What else is there?”

And well, if there’s one downside of knowing each other too well, this is it. Chloe mulls over it for a second, weighing the merits of downplaying it, or skimming over the truth entirely, but it’s an idea that she dismisses quickly. Even to stop her from worrying, Chloe won’t lie to her.

“Guards. Lots of them. All throughout the private floors.” Chloe chews briefly on her bottom lip. “Heavily armed.”

Nadine’s arm draws tighter against her waist. Very briefly, and her expression doesn’t even shift, but Chloe feels the changes clearly.

“Goddammit, Sam,” she says curtly.

“Yes, well, he’s been wrong about worse things,” Chloe offers.

“Not many,” Nadine retorts. The arm around her waist is distinctly protective now, and Chloe revels in the soft novelty of that before speaking up again.

“Love, I think you might be forgetting that I’m not _actually_ a mild mannered historian.” She reaches up, chucks Nadine on the chin. “I can take care of myself.”

“Clearly,” Nadine says, as if that was never in question. “I just don’t like it. You on your own, no gun, no weapon at all, and we’re still aiming for a best case scenario, which means not getting spotted...”

“Hey, I’ll not have you disparaging my stealth skills!” Chloe interjects, mock-petulantly.

“I’d just feel better if I were going with you.”

A crescendo swells and rises in the music, and they pull together automatically, naturally, like human magnets. Chloe tucks her chin onto Nadine’s shoulder, and that feeling of endearment grows. Nadine isn’t wrong: now that they have armed goons to consider, this leg of their plan can get complicated, and one thing she’s learnt working with her new partner is that there’s often simplicity in numbers, if that number is two. It’s been long years of Chloe working mostly alone, teaming up with others for convenience, but she’d quickly gotten used to the luxury of always having someone dependable just behind her. For a moment, she’s caught with a wild impulse to throw their plans to the wind, tell Nadine to come along with her, and they can make things up as they go along.

But then boring old common sense intrudes. She turns her head briefly to kiss Nadine’s cheek, and instead catches her on the unmapped territory between her neck and her jaw. It won’t occur to her until a few minutes later that not only was this extremely telling, but it was almost certainly unnecessary; they weren’t being watched or observed in any way.

“You’re sweet, but I’ve got to do this alone. It’ll be quicker, and if it ends up taking longer than expected, it won’t do for both of us to be missing in action.”

“Ja, you’re right,” Nadine admits. 

“Besides, you’re the jock; they’ll probably shoot at you on sight. It’ll be way easier for shy stuttering Ana Govender to pretend that she took the wrong turn somewhere and got lost.” She taps the thick, fake glasses. “I’ll be chucking these; heaven knows it probably seems like I can’t see without them.”

Nadine huffs in amusement as the music fades away in a delicate tinkle of high keys. The dance ends, and she pulls away, giving Chloe a little bow. Chloe stands still for it, charmed. One day she really will have to wrangle this story out of her friend. Nadine Ross: expert in hand to hand combat, munitions, small army management and somehow, ballroom etiquette.

“Just... be careful, yeah?” Nadine says as she leads them off of the dance floor.

“Always am,” Chloe says, and winks in open acknowledgement of the huge lie they both know that is. Nadine shakes her head, smiling despite herself.

“I’m serious. This is our best opportunity, but it isn’t our only one. If it looks really bad we can always go back to the drawing board with Rasheeda.”

It’s true. Rasheeda hadn’t given them a time limit; just a goal and an injunction that the job be bloodless. Chloe’s not ready to abandon ship just yet though. She bumps their hips together. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t fling _all_ caution to the wind. My self-preservation instincts are firmly intact.”

“Good.” Another song has started up, and apparently this one is a favourite for this particular breed of insufferable wealthy people; more couples are gravitating towards the dance floor than those moving off of it. They find themselves at the edge of the ballroom floor. Nadine’s hand is on her elbow, curved there solicitously without being possessive. “Chloe, I...”

She stops. Chloe looks up at her curiously. She’s very aware of how open and exposed they are, no longer in the midst of the crowd, but this isn’t, she supposes, an uncommon position for a married couple to find themselves in. Standing close, half in and out of each other’s arms, looking into each other’s eyes. 

Except that’s no longer quite true. Nadine is looking away now, eyes lowered, lids fluttering. They had helped each other with their makeup earlier this evening. Though no stranger to getting dolled up, Nadine is a nevertheless twitchy one. She hadn’t been able to keep herself from shifting in her seat as Chloe painted her lids a soft, rich brown, just a few shades darker than her skin, speckled through and through with gold. There’s a little smudge of imperfection just below the arch of her brow, where Chloe had swept too high, and then used a licked thumb to clean it away. Nadine had helped her put her hair up, and when Chloe had held out an arm painted with three swatches of lipstick, had chosen the soft red. It’s the shade of the faint imprint on her neck right now, where Chloe had kissed her, unthinkingly, just a few minutes ago.

Chloe watches as Nadine’s hand reaches up to touch that mark, and then falls away abruptly. 

“Nothing,” she says. She smiles, quick and bright as a solar flare, as she steps away. “You should probably get going, Mrs. Govender. Stay safe.”

It takes Chloe a second to wipe the dazed look off her face. She hopes she doesn’t look like too much of an idiot.

“Copy that. See you in a bit, Mrs. Govender.”

Nadine nods, gives her a little finger-gun and walks off, never looking back. It happens so quickly that Chloe suspects that that slack look is back on her face. Her friend slips through the crowd, taking a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. In less than a minute, Chloe sees her with the lawyer from before, that polite, high society smile back in place.

Chloe touches her lips, slipping off to a side hallway, away from the lights and the constant murmur of conversation. _A little pickle_ , she had called it before. All of a sudden, it’s looking like a pretty big pickle, and a tough one to swallow at that.

This isn’t a first. This isn’t new. She’s developed feelings, of various depths and intensities, for her partners in the past. This isn’t the first time she’s seen the print of her lipstick on the skin of a friend turned lover, or the first time she’s turned into a married woman for a job. Since starting in this business, and probably before that if she’s being honest with herself, she’s had what can be politely described as a casual approach to relationships. She saw someone she wanted, someone who wanted her as well, and she didn’t hesitate. Most of her partnerships were temporary, so her trysts were as well. There was never any need to worry about making things awkward, or what lay in the future, because Chloe Frazer lived in the now. She knew that, and the men she worked with knew it too.

In _that_ regard, this is a first, one of several. Nadine isn’t a man, and that’s made working with her different; hell, _better_. Chloe has loved women before, but never ones that she has to work with. Never ones that she spent weeks on end with, in dingy hotel rooms pouring over fragile maps, in ageing four-wheelers puffing across wind-swept deserts, deep within the embrace of heat-soaked jungles, staying close despite the humidity. Chloe’s never had her eyes on a woman whose _friendship_ she’d courted far before she even looked at her body in that way.

(And god, what a body it is. Chloe straddles the line between envy and muffled desire, but most days she finds herself firmly on the latter side; she wouldn’t know what to do with all those muscles anyway. But Nadine does, bless her soul. And her biceps.)

Come to think of it, there’s never been much of an overlap between her friends and lovers (with a few notable exceptions), and even when there was, they were lovers before they truly became friends. This is alien territory for her, this hazy in-between where they’re friends approaching something more. Where she’s mostly reconciled herself with the fact that she has _feelings_ , and she thinks, believes, hopes that they’re returned, but neither party has done anything to act on it. She is almost a stranger to herself in this situation; like a girl with a crush that she keeps to herself and her diary, an actual Ana Govender come to life and taking over her body.

But she doesn’t have to go far in asking herself what factors into this sudden personality change; this involves Nadine, and Nadine makes all the difference. For the first time in her life Chloe has a permanent partner, a friend that she can count on in everything, an amazing woman that she _likes_ , goddammit, and Chloe is afraid that she’ll do something to balls it all up.

And that brings them here, chasing each other around a metaphorical merry-go-round, waiting for the catch up or the collision.

“Bugger it all,” Chloe mutters.

This isn’t a good time for introspection; no time ever really is, not when you’re Chloe Frazer and you kind of pride yourself on appearing as shallow as possible. But she sees this coming to a head sometime soon. Needs must, if she continues to do things like kiss Nadine when it’s not needed, look at the changing colours of her eyes, think about the way those arms feel when they’re around her.

For now, she tries to re-centre her mind on the job. There are three access points to the vents that she can get to easily, and she’s prepared to use any one of them. Chloe slips down the hallways, moving a bit faster when she knows she’s out of human eyesight, and a little faster still when she’s out of reach of the cameras. Ana Govender disappears bit by bit as she moves: first out of her expression, then her bearing, then her gait. Chloe rolls her shoulders, preparing to work.

The first point of entry that she has in mind is the least used female bathroom tonight. Ensuring that it was the least used bathroom hadn’t taken much; to begin with, it’s the furthest away from all the activity of the ball. Chloe had then busted the fancy hand-dryer, dumped all the expensive Swiss mints down a toilet bowl, and introduced a weird scent into one of the stalls. That scent has now mostly faded, but the fact of having no mints is probably enough for most of this crowd to view this bathroom as a third world country. 

Chloe closes the door behind her; there’s no lock on it, so the clear pane of glass at the bottom of the door will have to be warning enough. The ceiling tile just in front of the third stall has her supplies. It’s easy enough to hop up there, get her bag down, and from there, she’s on automatic. She removes her glasses, tosses it and her clutch into the gym bag, and slips her evening gown over her head. Beneath it, she’s wearing long, sturdy leggings over her underwear. Her midriff, however, is bare, and she can’t suppress a small shiver as the cool air hits her skin. Her belt, fitted with a few necessities, goes round her waist, and she’s reaching into the gym bag for her t-shirt when at the corner of her eyes, she spots movement at the door.

Chloe coils and springs into action immediately, kicking the gym bag clear across the floor and into an open stall. She’s poised to jump up to the partitions between the stall, see if she can avoid detection, but when she takes a second glance back to the door, she relaxes. The shoes that she can see through the glass pane at the bottom are sensible black pumps with slim heels, not too high, and they’re attached to brown ankles. The brisk knock that sounds on the door a moment later confirms it: Nadine.

Muscles relaxing, knees straightening, Chloe raises her brows as Nadine eases into the bathroom and closes it quietly behind her. She flicks her eyes over Chloe perfunctorily, (lingering just a touch) and then stalks over wordlessly.

“Uh.” Chloe blinks. “Hey china. Something wrong?”

Nadine shakes her head.

“No. Look, I should make this quick, just in case I’m missed.” And then Chloe’s brows, already high up on her forehead, go even higher as Nadine flips up the hem of her blouse – flashing a wink of sleek, toned abs – reaches up towards her breasts with her other hand, which then reappears holding a slim black pistol. This she holds out towards Chloe.

Chloe looks at the gun, and then the place it had come from, and can’t resist saying, “Happy to see me, love?”

Nadine rolls her eyes, but Chloe doesn’t miss the twitch of her lips.

“All right, smartass. Just take it.”

Their fingers brush lightly as Chloe reaches out to grasp the gun. Upon closer inspection Chloe can see that it’s actually a tranquiliser, a more compact version of the model they usually employ. As she watches, Nadine reaches up into her blouse again, this time near her ribs, and comes out with a little box of extra darts. This she also gestures towards Chloe.

“Got any snacks up there?” Chloe asks, smile widening just a touch. She can’t help it.

“A couple of droëwors,” Nadine replies dryly. She shakes the box towards Chloe. “Just... take it, ja? I’ll feel better.” 

It’s the second time she’s said that tonight, so Chloe feels like it’s only appropriate to say, for the second time, “You’re sweet.”

She does take the box, and slips it into a pouch on her belt. There’s no holster for the gun, however. This, she flips into her other hand, twirls it around a finger. 

“I thought we said no guns,” she says. Nadine looks faintly sheepish.

“Yeah, well. There was a time when we thought this job wouldn’t involve guards. And it’s not actually a gun, is it? Rasheeda still gets her way, we won’t be killing anyone. Look, I’ll put a dollar in the fib jar if you want. Once you take it.”

Nadine’s not meeting her eyes directly, and right now, it’s what Chloe wants, almost desperately. Obviously Nadine cares about her, it’s something she’s known for months now, perhaps ever since the Western Ghats. But she wants to see the look in Nadine’s eyes as she urges her to take the tranq gun, protect herself on this simple mission that will have several opportunities to go wrong. In a moment she gets her wish: Nadine glances at her through thick, short lashes, and Chloe finds that she can’t decipher the look in them.

“Well, you know I can’t say no to you,” she says at last. That prompts a snort from Nadine.

“You can, and you do, often.”

They chuckle.

“Do I get one of those?” Chloe points at Nadine’s blouse. “Your little bra holsters.”

“Ja, I can take this one off if you want it,” Nadine says, shrugging, and good god, Chloe feels her cheeks getting hot. “Don’t know that you’d really want it, though. Conceptually they’re a bit stupid, but they work well enough for concealment, if that’s the main thing you’re after. If, that is, the firearm is small enough, and well… if your bust-line is big enough.”

She skirts her eyes back down, away from Chloe’s chest, and now they’re _both_ blushing like schoolgirls. This is where things start to seem surreal Chloe; she’s standing in front of her best friend in just a bra and leggings, in the bathroom of some rich scumbag’s house as they prepared to steal back stolen artefacts, and the foremost thought running through Chloe’s mind is, _god, I like her so much._

She hasn’t lost total control of her mouth, so she doesn’t say that. Instead, she says,

“Back pocket will do fine for me.”

She doesn’t yet suit words to actions, however, and there’s a little lull between them: in speech, in action, in the very air, it seems. For a moment, they’re just looking at each other.

Chloe breaks the silence, delicately, feeling as if she’s breaking the thin film layer above a crème brulée.

“Look, Nadine...”

“God, no,” Nadine cuts across her quickly. “You don’t have to say anything. Or apologise. God, I hope you weren’t going to apologise, if anything _I_ should be the one to...”

The one to what, Chloe doesn’t know. Nadine doesn’t finish the sentence, instead petering out to bite gently on her bottom lip. Some of her plum coloured lipstick rubs off against the firm white of her teeth; it’s adorable.

“We can talk about this later, okay?” Nadine continues finally. “When all this is over and Rasheeda is happy and we’ve collected our pay. I just don’t want to--”

It is a day, apparently, of unfinished sentences. In far periphery, over Nadine’s shoulder, Chloe registers movement at the door once again. Now that Nadine is in here with her, it doesn’t matter who’s at the door; it won’t be good for them. Even worse, the glass pane at the bottom of the door gives her a clear view out to the shoes of their would-be intruder. Bright blue, sparkly, impossibly ugly shoes.

Nadine, seeing the look on her face, has paused and is already beginning to tense up. There’s no time to communicate her plan; Chloe looks at the incriminating gun in her hand, sticks it in the front waistband of her leggings, whispers a quick “sorry”, and pulls Nadine down to kiss her.

When their lips meet, the first thing Chloe feels is a twinge of disappointment. This isn’t how she wanted this to happen. She’s only just coming to terms with the fact that she _had_ wanted it to happen, but not like this. She would have wanted to talk it out, flirt up a storm, know for absolutely certain that Nadine returns her feelings. Chloe’s well acquainted with the reality that life is unfair, but goddammit, it would have been nice to have gotten a break in this regard, at least. Their first kiss should have been more than this. 

That’s only for the first second. Well aware that they need to be caught well in the midst of making out, not just at the beginning of a kiss, she barrels her fingers through Nadine’s hair, pressing hard against her friend as they kiss. Nadine’s quick; she hadn’t even started when Chloe tugged her down, just curved an arm around her waist, used the other to palm Chloe’s arse, and is now kissing her hard, ardently. Chloe’s heart swoops low into her stomach, and there’s no faking the shivers that race along her skin. There’s no faking any of it.

Chloe pulls them together as close as possible as the door opens with a noise that she only hears faintly. She hopes Nadine can feel the gun and her belt: the two things that she definitely needs to keep hidden. As her knees turn to putty, Nadine uses the hand on her butt to lift her, as easily as picking up a glass of wine, and angle them away from the door.

 _Well, she’s got that covered_ , Chloe thinks fuzzily.

They kiss with heat, and Chloe can’t help but put her all into it. Unlike dancing, Chloe’s not in the least surprised that Nadine is this good at kissing, that Nadine makes her want to tremble with absolutely no pretence. It might have taken her a while to realise that she has it bad for her partner, but it’s been obvious from the first that Nadine could and probably has broken hearts as easily as she breaks legs. 

Nadine backs her against a wall as they continue to make out. About a full thirty seconds have passed, but the person at the door hasn’t yet made a sound. Chloe chances it, pulling away, kissing her way down Nadine’s neck, adding marks to the little one she put there earlier tonight. With her eyes heavily lidded, she can make out the figure of a woman standing stock still, as if in shock. There’s a dainty hand pressed to her bosom and everything.

“Darling,” Nadine murmurs, kissing down Chloe’s neck. Chloe shivers in a way that she feels must be visible; she tosses around casual terms of endearment like candy, but this is the first time Nadine’s ever used one on _her_. And even if this is all a farce... crikey, if it doesn’t feel good.

The word has an effect, and not just on Chloe. Hearing the sound, the woman at the door straightens, hands fluttering, and then, finally, coughs.

Chloe emits her best squeal, and hopes she looks properly mortified as she looks at Senator Allgood over Nadine’s shoulders. Nadine pulls away, glances back at the Senator, and then shields Chloe’s body with her own in an even more blatant way, the way any woman would do if she wanted to shield her painfully shy, half-naked wife from view.

“Oh god, Senator, w-we’re so...”

“It’s okay, Ana. Senator, I apologise, we can explain...”

They both break off into embarrassed silence. Chloe hides most of her face in Nadine’s neck, giving her a good opportunity to peek up at their host. The senator is blushing furiously, high spots of colour up on her paper white cheeks, and she’s avoiding their eyes as much as they are hers. It’s a stark transformation from the insufferable, haughty woman she’d spoken to earlier. Her face looks livid enough to poach an egg on.

“Not… ahem, not at all, ladies. I was just making the rounds. Mrs. Govender, I wanted to make sure that you’d found the Captain and I ah, I see that you have.” 

The older woman coughs again. In answer, Chloe buries her face fully in Nadine’s neck. She feels her partner rubbing her back.

“I really must apologise for our behaviour, Senator.” Her voice drips with contrition. “We heard our song, slipped off together, and I just suppose... well, no matter, it’s really no excuse for behaving like foolish teenagers like this.”

“Oh no, Captain Govender.” A tittering, annoying laugh. “I may not look like it, but I do remember what it was like to be young and in love.”

Chloe hears Nadine give a self-conscious laugh, feels the rumble of her shoulders shaking with it. 

“Well, thank you for not judging us too harshly.”

“Certainly.” Senator Allgood glances at Chloe’s evening gown, draped over the door of one of the stalls, and then back to the woman herself. “I hope I haven’t caused you too much distress, Mrs. Govender.”

 _If you’re not enjoying this, I’ll eat my foot_ , Chloe thinks drily.

“I... I, not at all, Senator.” She makes her voice a papery whisper. “I’m terribly sorry about all of this.”

“Once again, no need.” Her lips spread in what she must think is a benevolent smile. “I’ll let you two get cleaned up. The exhibition is about to start, and we’ve added a few interesting Middle Eastern pieces to the roster. I know you won’t want to miss it, Mrs. Govender.”

Chloe mumbles something, and the Senator takes it as answer enough. She backs out of the room, giving them a knowing smile as she closes the door.

The silence is stretchy and full as they wait for the senator and the footfalls of her ugly shoes to disappear. Chloe expects Nadine to pull away from her immediately afterwards, but instead she simply holds her at arm’s length. Under the soft light of the elegant bathroom, she looks just as composed and business-like as she does on a killing-floor in the middle of a metropolis or a jungle.

“What do you think?” She jerks her head at the door through which Senator Allgood had left. “Do you buy that she just happened to come looking for you? Do you think she knows something? The roster…”

Chloe shakes her head. “No, I’ve spent enough time around that woman to be sure. If she knew something, even suspected it, she’d try to have us dragged out of here, make a spectacle out of it.”

Nadine blows out a breath. Her hair is all messed up from Chloe’s attentions, and the gust of air shifts a few tendrils out of her eyes.

“I suppose that’s reassuring. I guess that means we fooled her, Mrs. Govender.”

Chloe nods. “That we did, Mrs. Govender.”

She waits for Nadine to realise that they’re still basically in each other’s arms, to pull further away in embarrassment. If it happens, it’s going to be Nadine that does it; Chloe feels comfortable here, and they’d just taken a huge step, involuntary though it was. She doesn’t want to step back.

Nadine doesn’t either.

“I think someone has a crush,” she says. 

Chloe blinks up at her, a slow smile creeping up to her lips.

“Well, I was wondering how we would introduce this elephant into the room, but I have to say I like your approach, china.”

The smile is returned, just as slow. Her fingertips still rest on Chloe’s hips, some of them on the fabric of her leggings, some of them on her bare skin.

“I was actually talking about the senator.”

“… _What_?”

“Didn’t you see the way she looked at you? All that blushing? And the way she suddenly showed up, supposedly wanting to know if you found me... You’ve got an admirer.”

Chloe laughs out loud, the sound coming from her throat. Nadine doesn’t tease her often, and she wouldn’t have expected her to do it here, but it’s delightful nonetheless.

“Shut up,” she says, smacking Nadine on the thigh. Her friend returns the laugh, looking at her with a fondness that Chloe doesn’t know she’s ever witnessed before, and finally, with a soft drag of fingers on her skin, pulls away. She steps back a few feet, ostensibly to give Chloe a little space to move. It’s space readily taken, but Chloe keeps her eyes on her friend as she collects her dress and slips it back over her head. 

That, they don’t need to discuss; this bathroom, this plan on the whole, is a bust. There’s no questioning what those new interesting items on the roster are. It’s a pity, but it’s definitely the truth. Chloe’s not even surprised that they have the gall to exhibit them; richness comes with shamelessness. And now that the Senator’s seen them in here, even if she doesn’t suspect that they’re anything but a bookish historian and a decorated officer, they can’t risk it. 

By the time she’s put herself back together, makeup fixed, glasses on, clutch in hand, gym bag stuffed back into the ceiling, Nadine is leaning against the wall near the door. Chloe walks up to her, hands on hips.

“All right, china. Don’t tell me we’re going to do the rom-com thing where we don’t talk about it until two weeks later when we’re on a double date and someone lets it slip that we made out once and we both end up getting dumped for the night.”

It gets the desired results; Nadine lowers her eyes and grins in the tell-tale way that says she’s blushing. She even gets a laugh for her trouble.

“You counting on being on a date in two weeks?”

Chloe shuffles a little closer. “If I play my cards right, sure.”

Nadine laughs again, and Chloe drinks it all up. She could get drunk on that sound, if given enough of it. It’s sustained her often enough. It’s ever gratifying, knowing the fearsome reputation that Nadine came to her with, hearing about her no-nonsense approach, her all-around fierceness... and still she smiles and laughs and jokes with Chloe more than anyone would ever think. 

“You don’t have to be sorry, you know,” Nadine says, finally glancing back up. Chloe shuffles closer still.

“Hm?”

“Before... you know.” Nadine gestures, like she’s about to try to explain something, then waves her hand and drops it. “Before you kissed me, you said sorry. You didn’t have to be. _Don’t_ have to be.”

Chloe feels a twin smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, but she doesn’t let it loose just yet. God, she’s actually nervous.

“Well, I was only being polite, love. Necessity or not, stealing kisses isn’t really the done thing.”

“Ja, you’re all about politesse and _not_ stealing stuff.”

Chloe reaches out to smack her on the thigh again, giggling. Nadine lets her, but then captures her by the wrist, fingers making a gentle shackle. Glancing at their joined hands, Chloe feels like her heart is going to kick off as much as it did during their kiss.

“You know,” Nadine says softly, “you honestly didn’t have to worry. I’m not sure how it wasn’t totally obvious, but I’m, ah… I’m pretty much a sure thing, Chloe.” She swallows. “If you want me.”

And now, Chloe couldn’t even stop the huge grin that breaks across her face if she wanted to. She glues her body to Nadine’s, breasts pressing together, thighs flush against one another, and kisses her for the second time. For the second time, she shivers with happiness and desire; for the second time Nadine wraps her arms around her and all the untapped strength in them makes her want to gasp. But this time, she’s the one to shove Nadine back against the wall, the one to deepen the kiss with a flicker of tongue, the one to take Nadine’s hand and drag it down to her arse when it doesn’t reach there of its own accord. They kiss for an altogether inadvisable amount of time, and all told, it’s worth every single second of it. 

Pulling away from her is like an act of rebellion; it’s the last thing her body wants to do. Nadine’s lipstick was a mess before and is doubly so now; hers, freshly reapplied, will have to be fixed again. That is a job for the near future; right now all she wants to do is look at Nadine and be looked at in return. Her friend’s eyes are bright and soft.

“That answer your question, love?”

“No,” Nadine says. She uses her thumb to touch the corner of Chloe’s mouth. “I’m a big dumb jock, remember? You’ll have to explain it to me a few more times. And maybe a few times after that.”

Chloe grins. “I’ve got a few more immediate problems on my plate, but take a number and I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

It’s light-hearted, it’s simple, it’s everything she could have ever hoped for, and she feels the anxiety dripping off her bones like shed skin. No matter that she’d done this completely backwards of how she normally would; it feels right to cross that line between friendship and more, even here. 

Nadine jerks her head towards the door, dropping her wrist after one last caress.

“Come on. We need to get cleaned up and get out there. Once we know we’re not being looked for, we can start gearing up for plan b. And then we can... talk.”

From the sounds of it, it’s going to be a capital T kind of talk. Chloe can hardly wait.

*

_**One week later.** _

Chloe monkeys down the side of the mansion, from pipelines to parapet to windowsill to exposed brick. With the added weight of the stolen goods, the return journey is a heavier one, but going down is always easier than going up.

A shot whizzes past her ear, and the bullet embeds itself into the stonework not a foot away. _Yikes._ Chloe descends faster.

She spares a glance at her wristwatch as she goes: four minutes. Four minutes couldn’t have been enough time for them to mobilise the entire house, right? Surely not. Still, it would be better to err on the side of caution. She spares a cheerful wave for the gentlemen leaning out of the windows with machine guns, yelling for her to stop, but she does not indeed stop, or slow down, or pay much attention to them at all. Her eyes are on her task, and sometimes on her watch, and sometimes on the ground.

“Any time now, china,” she murmurs, leaping to a window on the left to avoid a spray of bullets.

As if the thinking of her conjures her, Chloe hears the screech of wheels and the spray of gravel below her as Nadine roars up in the jeep. Chloe doesn’t wait, or call out, or warn her; she simply jumps.

Nadine swerves hard right at the last second; grass, gravel and flowers fly in such a huge arc it’s almost like a rainbow. Chloe sticks the landing, ending up squarely on the passenger seat with a whoop. She smacks a kiss onto Nadine’s cheek, and by that time she’s shifted gears and they’re roaring across Senator Allgood’s pristine lawn. The good senator is back on Capitol Hill this week, but her son is still at home, and his enraged face is one of the many still hanging out of the windows, yelling curses and epithets. Chloe gives him the finger jauntily, and then scans the driveway, relieved to see that none of the hired goons are yet in vehicular pursuit. They can get a good head start.

“I’m going to hazard a guess and say that you were spotted,” Nadine says. 

“Brawn, beauty, _and_ brains!” Chloe marvels teasingly. She winks. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re the full package?”

Nadine rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing even as she does.

“You can tell me tonight when you’re thanking me.”

“Repeatedly,” Chloe promises.

She makes a motion with her hand that Nadine is well used to by now; in the next second, they’re exchanging seats. Chloe lifts her hips for Nadine to slide beneath her, and then slides across, hands already poised to be at two and ten. Getting behind the wheel only makes her feel more exuberant.

“Got all of them?” Nadine asks.

“All three,” Chloe confirms, jerking a thumb to the bag she’d thrown in back. “And a couple extra pieces for our fee. Had to sacrifice stealth to do it, but hey, when do things ever go our way?”

Nadine smiles at her, one of those big, dazzling ones. The wind tosses her hair helter-skelter, and there are curls everywhere, but they can’t mask or dampen that smile. 

“I can name a few things that do.” She leans across, running a hand through her hair to keep it back, and kisses Chloe briefly, but sweetly, on the mouth. “Good work, Mrs. Govender.”

Chloe laughs, pedal on the floor, careening them out of this adventure – and into countless others, lips to god’s ears.

“Back at you, Mrs. Govender.”


End file.
